Home For Christmas
by Dudeybob
Summary: Ron and Hermione spend their first Christmas together and Ron wants it to be special for her. Hermione knows as long as he is there, it can never be anything else.


**I owe the main idea to a prompt on the internet, which I have permission to use and share. **

Hermione glanced up from her book when she heard a strange shuffling noise and then a grunt. She'd heard the front door open a few moments ago, and now Ron had appeared on the front matt, attempting to drag a pine tree through the too small door. Hermione rolled her eyes and marked her place, leaving her book on the sofa to go and help him. She pulled out her wand before she reached him, pointing it at the doorway to enlarge it so Ron could fit through with the tree.

"No!" He yelled when he peered over his shoulder and saw her wand, so loudly that Hermione almost dropped it.

"Why ever not?" She asked, more bewildered than annoyed. She lowered her wand slowly, bringing it down to her side and Ron visibly relaxed, but a sheepish expression crept across his face that he tried to hide from Hermione by becoming very interested in the 'wipe your feet' slogan on the matt in front of him (which he had not wiped his feet on). "I-I wanted to do it the muggle way, you know. Decorate the tree by hand with all those weird hanging things and tinsel. I got this from some bloke down the road. Dragged it all the way home."

"But why?" His explanation had done nothing to clear up Hermione's bewilderment. Ron was nothing like his dad and his love of muggles. He preferred to do things strictly using magic, out of laziness rather than any sense of superiority, and he grumbled when he had to so much as cross the room to get his wand so he could summon the TV remote (which he still could not figure out, despite many lessons from Hermione).

Ron became even more interested in the dirt his shoes had left on the carpet and didn't immediately answer her. He shuffled his feet, as if he had been hoping his wife would never question why he was lugging a twelve foot Christmas tree through their front door at thirty two minutes past midnight. "I wanted you to feel more at home, this is your first Christmas with just me and I know we're going to your parents tomorrow, but..."

Hermione resisted the urge to throw herself at him as she had done when he'd suggested telling the house elves to flee and calmly tucked her wand behind her ear and stepped fowards to help Ron drag the tree through the impossibly small front door. He looked embarassed enough already.

It took them almost half an hour of panting, prising, and even cutting parts away before the tree was finally standing upright in the living room in a large plant pot that Hermione had gone to fetch from the garden shed. It looked lopsided and damaged from everything it had been through, and there were pine needles and snow scattered throughout the house, soaking into the freshly cleaned carpet. Hermione rolled her eyes, but a smile lingered on her lips, her eyes sparkling with the familiarity of it all and the unexpected sweetness of the gesture.

Ron shut the door, finally trapping out the outside cold and brushed some pine needles off of Hermione's shoulder and she smiled, remembering the snow. Her hand came up too, resting briefly on his before they both dropped, still feeling the warmth of the other's touch tingling through their fingers, despite the feet of snow and late December night.

Ron fished in his pocket and pulled out a CD, looking at it as though it had grown tenticles. "And I er-I got this at the music shop this afternoon. I heard a bloke in there saying it was what his family had every year when they decorated the tree, so I figured it was muggley."

"'Muggley' is not a word, Ronald," Hermione sighed, with an affectionate smile and Ron's ears turned pink as she took the CD entitled _Now! Christmas _off of him and slipped it into the DVD tray. If Ron tried to work that, they'd be there until the following Christmas. Hermione smiled as one of her favourite Christmas songs, _Fairytale of New York _immediately began to play. Ron pulled a face at the television, as if they were singing in Swahili, but made no comment.

Hermione produced a box of decorations from the far corner of the room, having hauled it down from the loft that afternoon and pulled out a long line of tinsel, drapping it around Ron's neck, wrapping it like a scarf around him. "Oi!" He protested and tried to tug it away but only succeded in tightening its hold and sprinkling pieces of tinsel all over the pine covered floor.

Ron caught sight of himself in the large mirror that hung on the wall and scowled. "Bloody Hell, I look like a sodding Christmas fairy," he muttered. Hermione smirked behind him and plucked her wand from behind her ear. With a quick flick, she made snow errupt from the end, coating his red hair in a layer or white dust.

"Oi!" Ron yelled again. Grinning and turning away from the mirror he grabbed her wrist, gently but firmly and turned her wand on its laughing mistress. Hermione screamed as the flurry of snow soaked them both and through her laughter, she lost her concentration and the snow turned first to a heavy blizzard, and then a rain storm. With a shriek, she flicked her wand again and the weather ceased to produce from it.

They paused, Ron's hand still closed around Hermione's wrist, gazing at one another and giggling feebly. Rain dripped down both of their faces, flakes of snow clinging to the wet strands of hair where it dissolved almost instantly. Ron dipped his head, tilting it to an angle and caught her lips in his own. He was almost surprised when she kissed him back, as if they were still teenagers barely used to dating one another rather than in their first year of marriage.

They pulled apart, Ron's eyes fixed on Hermione's smile as she reached up and wiped a flake of snow from his eyebrow with the pad of her thumb. He grinned awkwardly down at her, as if they had just had their first kiss and gestured with his head towards the tree.

"We should probably get started, you know, if we've gotta do it the muggle way. Bit tedious."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "May I remind you that this was your idea, Ronald."

"Because I thought it'd make you happy," he shot back. "Women," he muttered under his breath as she sorted through the box, not loud enough for her to hear. Or so he thought.

"If you insult my sex again, Ronald, I will find another place to put the star."

Ron rolled his eyes, but grinned as he knelt on the floor to join her at the box. He gulped when he saw the star with six very sharp points. He would not put it past his wife to follow through with her threats. It was a shame she'd threatened him with that, he really did enjoy bickering with her and from the gleam that twinkled in her eyes, he knew she did too. And what was Christmas without stupid arguments and pettiness? But he also didn't much fancy showing up at A&E three days before Christmas with a star stuck up there.

Hermione bent over the box, biting down on her lip to hide her smile. Her first Christmas as Ron's _wife, _and as much as she appreciated what he wanted to do for her, she knew it was not necessary. She did not need to spend two hours putting up a Christmas tree with her favourite songs in the background to feel at home. Because as long as he was there, she could never be anywhere else.


End file.
